caucasian

We explain what Caucasian means, its literal meaning and how it was related to the idea of ​​race throughout history.

People with fair complexions and blond, red or brown hair are called Caucasian.

What does Caucasian mean?

When we use the term Caucasian we may be referring to different things. In a literal sense, the term applies to those who are native to the region of the Caucasus, that is, the area around the moutains of the same name, located between Europe Y Asia western, between sea Caspian and the Black Sea.

However, the term has acquired other connotations throughout the history. When the anthropology just taking its first steps, in the eighteenth century it was thought that the species human it could be classified according to their "races." Each "race" was supposed to possess physical (especially skull shape), mental, and behavioral characteristics that were somehow determined by their respective places of origin.

This theory was known as "physical anthropology" and its creator was the German naturalist and physician Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840), who proposed that although the human origin was probably unique, the species had subsequently been divided into five races different: the Mongoloid race, the Malay race, the Negroid (or Ethiopian) race, and the Caucasian or Caucasoid race (caucasia varietas).

Thus, according to this theory, the Caucasian race was composed of human beings with white complexions, abundant body hair, eyes tending to blue, gray, green or hazel, and blond, red or brown hair, that is, the "white race" . These features would be determined by their origin in the cold Caucasus mountains, from where they would have spread throughout Eurasia.

Today it is known that the human species originated in Africa and that possibly our ancestors were dark in complexion, since a significant load of melanin is essential to resist the intense sunlight that characterizes the region for most of the year. There is actually no genetic imprint on the DNA human that allows the existence of a "race" with predetermined mental and behavioral characteristics.

But, although the theories of Blumenbach and those of other later anthropologists have been largely contradicted by the science and anthropology, the use of the term "Caucasian" for the supposed white race still endures.

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